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It has been about a week since my OrdBot's first successful calibration print and it seems like a good time to write down some of my initial problems, experiences and solutions. However before I get into that a review of my 3D printer stack.

Electronics
AzteegX1 v1.0 (644P processor)
Lava heatbed, I have only used PLA at this point so this is still disconnected.Software
Mac OSX
Marlin firmware
Slic3r v0.9.9
Pronterface (March 2012 release)
Repetier-host Mac (0.56, lower versionthan linux/windows releases for some reason)

Now for the problems encountered during the past week, approximately in the order which I ran into them.

Pololu A4988 - I have used these before on my ShapeOko CNC machine. They have been so reliable that I completely forgot how to set them up, as such I blew up 3 drivers while setting up the electronics. So b…

I've been a fan of MakerSlide ever since building my ShapeOko CNC Mill, and have been interested in 3D printing since first hearing about the RepRap project in 2007. So when I first saw the OrdBot, I knew that it would be the printer I build. It didn't hurt that I had 10 feet of extra MakerSlide and a whole bunch of the special bearings and eccentric spacers left over from my ShapeOko build.

One of my goals was to build all the custom parts myself, the blue and black pieces in the photo above. Cutting aluminum on my new CNC machine pushed it to the limit, but worked out in the end. One of the larger OrdBot pieces is the handle, here is a shot of the ShapeOko making short work of it:

There are a couple parts that I modified or upgraded during the build. Most notably the Z axis. After reading about bent Z-rods I decided to get some ACME rods, and I wanted to use some spare Nema-23 motors that I had on hand.

The NEMA-23 motors for the Z axis were easy, I slightly modified the sto…

April of 2012 I signed up for the first batch of ShapeOko kits from inventables.com. Unsure of how popular the kit would be, inventables had a kickstarter-style order of 150 (or so) kits. That number was reached handily and several more batches followed. Since then the ShapeOko has become a standard item in their store.

I've wanted a CNC mill for a long time, but could never justify the expense. Now there are products like the MakerSlide linear rail system that made it possible for low cost machines. The first round of kits were only $200 for the entire mechanical platform - add your electronics and a dremel tool and the machine can start cutting.
So thats what I did.

The stock kit plus motors after assembly:

One of the nice things about the ShapeOko is how hackable it is. For instance if you want to make the cutting area larger you can just replace the MakerSlide with longer rails. So I added longer rails, a second Y-axis motor, a torsion box to mount everything on, a bigger rout…

Will Winder is a software developer. In his four years of study at UNH he took variety of advanced Computer Science courses including Object Oriented Design, Computer Networks, Artificial Intelligence and Compiler Design. He has been working professionally using C, C++ and Java since graduating in 2006. In his free time he continues to expand his skills by involving himself in many projects, some of which can be seen on this blog.